Merry Little Chrinukkah
by HilsonFTW
Summary: House and Wilson, now old and long retired, but still very much in love, invite their loved ones round for a Chrinukkah party. It gets off to a good start, but then disaster strikes.
1. A cosy December Afternoon

Slowly but surely House was actually beginning to look forward to the major invasion that was to mark Christmas Eve. Christmas and Hanukkah were co-inciding conveniently this year, so he and Wilson - well, mostly Wilson - had decided to have a bit of a bash and invite all their nearest and dearest for some good old eating, chatting and exchanging of presents. Cuddy was going to come, complete with Rachel and their honorary granddaughter Gina, the Foremans, probably bursting with the latest boasts about their first grandchild, a little boy called Nathan, Stacy, old and creaky but still engaging and loving company, Danny, who was always a joy to talk to with his thoughts from another universe - it was gonna be fun to have them all there, and who knew how long they'd all still be able to get together like that. Wilson was busy in the kitchen preparing a gargantuan spread, and House himself was slouched in his favourite chair by the window taking a breather after he had tidied and polished the piano, and laid it with all the necessary infrastructure for a sumptuous buffet. He eyed it again, just in case. Plates, check, soup bowls, salad bowls, dessert bowls, check, cutlery, check, the good linen napkins, check, glasses for anything anyone might want to drink, check, any amount of coasters and stands lest the hot bowls and plates should harm the antique wood, check again. He had dusted the menorah and given it pride of place in the middle of the buffet, the Christmas tree was standing in the library corner ready to be lit and a mistletoe was hanging from the ceiling near the bedroom door. Now all he had to do is hang around till it was time to change into something more respectable, and keep Henry, their cat, off the piano. For that purpose he had armed himself with a water pistol - or more of a water AK47 really - that was resting across his lap, and Henry better be aware that he was going to use it should the need arise. He took another sip of bourbon and savoured the flavour; it wasn't often he got to enjoy such hepatoxic pleasures now. Wilson, who had just turned his gaze away from the potato grater for a second, was narrowing his eyes. "Hey! It's still my first! And it's Christmas Eve!" "Did I say anything?" "You were going to!" Wilson shrugged and turned his attention to the embryonic latkes again. House rested his gaze on him a little longer and just drank him in; the warm brown eyes, the thick shock of almost white hair hanging into them, the muscular arms in rolled-up shirt sleeves, the air of calm self-assurance of someone who knew precisely what he was doing there and loved it. It was good to see Wilson cooking, at peace with the world and himself. "Don't you even have the decency to feel cold in that shirt?" Wilson shrugged again. "Work yourself warm, you can cut the vegetables for the chowder!" "You'll only complain that I'm not cutting it into the right shapes or something!" He hugged himself and rubbed his arms in a futile effort to generate some warmth. Surely a T-shirt, a shirt AND a fleece, not to mention a blazing fire in the grate, should be enough to stay warm even at his age? "HENRY!" He aimed and hit the big red tom straight in the flank with his water pistol. The response was most satisfying, an affronted meow in mid-jump off the piano and a gallop into the study where he'd be sulking for the next few hours. House blew the smoke off the barrel and grinned to himself, the extra five bucks for the super-soak feature had so been worth it. "Wilson! There's a puddle here!" "Here's a towel to clean it up with, catch!" "What if I slip in it?" House did his best saucer-eyes routine. Wilson rolled his eyes and came to clean it up himself. "And while you're out here anyway..." "Ok..." Wilson hugged him from behind and gave him a nice good rub for warmth. "Better?" "Thanks!" He smiled up at him and pulled him down for a kiss. "I'm bored, will you play with me?" "Not now, little one. Uncle Jimmy has to cook now. But if you're very good the Hanukkah moose will come later carrying lots of presents." They both laughed, and House decided to fight the boredom with a few tunes instead. "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack frost nipping at your nose..." They smiled at each other. That was life was all about, sharing what you were best at with the one you loved most.

They had told people to come about half an hour before sundown, so they could all light the candles together, why not keep with the ritual while you're at it anyway? Sundown, however, was still a long time away and House had just moved on to Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas on the piano, when the first guests arrived. Three generations of Cuddys tumbled into the door and made straight for the kitchen, following the smell of frying sufganiyot like blood hounds on a trail. "Happy Hanukkah, Wilson!" "Happy Hanukkah, everyone!" A group hug followed. "Sorry we're so early", Rachel apologised. "Someone here just wouldn't hear of waiting to see her Grampa any longer." "Is that so?" Wilson lifted Gina up and twirled her around. "Here, have a sufganiyah. Careful, it's fresh from the pan!" "Thank you!" Gina was delighted and smeared herself liberally with the jelly oozing from the fresh pastry, well below her dignity as a seven-year-old. "Hey, why don't I get any?" House felt very neglected, that's what he got for arranging the buffet AND providing the musical entertainment? No sufganiyot? "Because Gina is an adorable little girl whose metabolism can well take all the oil and you're a decrepit old cripple whose TBIL was through the roof last week!" "Whoa, congratulations! When did you qualify?" "Qualify?" "In hepafuckingtology! Now get me a sufganiyah, I'll be good again after Christmas." "What's hepafuckingtology?" Cuddy rolled her eyes at House. "Hepatology is the medical study of the liver and fucking is a very naughty word that Uncle Greg shouldn't use in your presence, sweetie. House! Stop corrupting my granddaughter!" "Just as it was getting to be fun... Do I get my sufganiyah now?" Wilson heaved an abysmal sigh. "Gina, you can bring your great uncle a sufganiyah." He put a ridiculously tiny one on a saucer and handed it to her.

She came over carrying the saucer like the host at a communion service. "Happy Christmas, uncle Greg!" He smiled and put the sufganiyah on the piano so he could embrace her properly. "Happy Hanukkah, Gina! Wanna play with me?" "Oh yeah!" She climbed onto his lap, careful to avoid the injury like she'd been taught since before she could even climb anything. House encouraged her. "Sit right down and make yourself comfortable, my owee is ok today." "Sure?" "Fure! Hardly hurtf at all", he munched through about a pound of sugar, jelly and crumbs. Cuddy and Rachel came over. "Happy Christmas, House!" More hugs and reciprocal happy Hanukkahs. "Uncle Greg?" "Yeah?" "Why do you wish me happy Hanukkah and I wish you happy Christmas?" "Because you're Jewish and I'm not." "Why aren't you?" "Because my Mom wasn't." "And why wasn't she?" "Because her Mom wasn't. See, you're Jewish because Rachel is, and she's Jewish because Cuddy is, and she's Jewish because her Mom was, and so on, all the way back to some 5000 years ago in the Middle East." "So what do you go back to?" "I go back to a whole lot of Dutch people, and so I was baptised into the Christian faith and celebrate Christmas. You go back to all these moms and grandmas and greatgrandmas and so on, and so you're Jewish and celebrate Hanukkah. It's all about your cultural heritage. Make sense?" Gina nodded. "Makes sense. Can we play now?" "Course we can, any requests?" "The Twelve Nights of Christmas! Please?" Oh dear... House hated that carol with a passion. Ah well... He helped her position her hands on the keyboard. "Ok, your thumb goes here, and here you put your index, and the middle finger there... Yeah, good!" Together they hammered out the basic tune. Gina giggled. "It sounds better when you play it on your own." "Well, I'm 75 years older than you, so you still have a lot of time to learn, ok?" And learn she would, he and Wilson were getting her a course of piano lessons for Hanukkah and would chip in together on a piano if they went well.

The next to arrive were Stacy and Danny. They had taken the train over from New York together because he was very reluctant to travel alone. Most of the time his schizophrenia was well-controlled now, but you never knew, and it was better not to be on his own if he did freak out, he had learned that lesson the hard way. Stacy strolled over to House first and they exchanged Christmas wishes, while Danny headed straight for the kitchen to pronounce his judgement about his brother's cookery skills. He ate nearly an entire sufganiyah with one bite. "They're not as good as Aunt Zelda's!" "Well, it's her recipe..." "Can't be, hers were gooey-er." "Gooey-er? Is that even a word?" "Dunno, but making up neologisms comes with schizophrenia, so I guess I'm covered." Wilson's face was a sight to behold. There was practically a thought bubble coming out of his head. "Oh great, here I am celebrating Hanukkah with TWO nutcases instead of one. How the hell did I get myself into that one?" it said. "Anyway, happy Hanukkah, Jimmy!" "Happy Hanukkah, Danny!" The hug they gave each other was somewhat perfunctory, and then Danny and Stacy changed places.

The apartment filled up gradually, and House filled glasses and encouraged merriment all around while Wilson finished the cooking and got changed. They all arranged the food on the piano together, a huge bowl of chowder, enough latkes to feed an army, the pitifully few sufganiyot that were left after everyone had had a good try in the kitchen already, a sumptuous cheese board, a stuffed turkey with all the trimmings, winter vegetables of all kinds, a big fruit cake, plates of cookies - no one was going to starve tonight. House then made his excuses to change into something more suitable. He had even ironed a shirt for the occasion and was now eyeing the contents of his closet-half quite critically. Hmmmm... Ok, the good pink shirt that he had decided on last night, the tailored grey suit. Tie or no tie? Wilson was wearing one, but then he usually did. No tie, a cravat instead. With that mission accomplished he dragged a brush through the leftovers on his scalp and sat down on the bed to put on his good black suede shoes and think for a moment. Finally he got up and took his old dress cane from the far corner of the closet. The silver on the handle was a little tarnished, but otherwise it still looked good. The evening just seemed to merit something more stylish than his walker, and he could always ask someone to get it for him should the need arise. He took a few experimental steps. Yep, the cane gave him just about enough support as long as he took it slowly.

Cuddy and Stacy were standing near the bedroom door chatting when he came out in his finery and applauded. "Mistletoe!" He found himself being kissed in stereo and enjoyed it immensely. "I wouldn't mind going further down that road…", Stacy stage whispered when they were both done. "Straight across the coffee table…" Cuddy agreed. "Sorry it didn't work out for you, ladies!" Wilson looked very smug as he put his arm around House and helped him to the sofa. Right now, everyone was beginning to gather around Foreman and his wife Jada as they were showing around pictures of Nathan, their first grandchild. "He's gorgeous", Gina squeaked. "I want lots of babies when I grow up!" "Now now, that's not something you should decide impulsively", Rachel told her with a wink – not really being the one to talk as Gina had been an accident after her college graduation party. "Foreman, is he Luther's or Michelle's?" "Luther's, Michelle has just split up with a potential Dad." She nodded. "Ah yeah, I heard, now you come to mention it." The apartment was filled with happy chatter while they were all waiting for the sun to set and the celebration proper to begin.


	2. Happy Holidays!

As the sun was setting, everyone congregated around the piano and Wilson donned a kippah he hadn't worn in a very long time for his big job of the night. He pronounced the brachah and lit the menorah as tradition demanded. Then himself, Danny, Cuddy and Rachel recited the hanerot halalu. Gina was too young to join them in it, but took up the tune enthusiastically when they sang maoz tzur and carried the menorah to the big bay window for all the world to see. Then Foreman, being one of the two only practising Christians on the premises, took charge. He had found himself a bible and read out Luke 2, 1-20, the story of the nativity: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed..." If they believed in their traditional meaning or not, they all found themselves spellbound by the power of the rituals they were sharing and their common message of hope. Finally, House lit the Christmas tree and sat down at the piano to lead the singing of Silent Night. "Right, people", he finished his rendition. "I don't know about you but I'm hungry. Are we raiding this buffet before it goes cold?" He didn't have to say that twice: his suggestion was received with so much enthusiasm he actually found himself with visions of his piano being crushed by the sheer pressure of people all trying to get to their favourite dishes first.

House was experimentally dunking a latke in a bowl of chowder when Gina pulled his sleeve. "Hm?" "Doesn't Henry get any of the lovely food?" "I don't think he'll want any, being a cat and all, but if you can find him..." "Well, where is he?" "I think he's sulking in the study. I had to shoot him off the piano earlier." "SHOOT him?" Gina looked appalled. "Well, with my water gun." He showed off that highly impressive piece of kit to her. "He was going to walk all over the plates." Gina nodded, then examined the water gun more closely. "That's a coooooool gun! Can I try it?" "Sure!" He gave it to her. "But don't..." But it was too late, she aimed, pulled the trigger and... Hit her grandmother square in the chest. House savoured the view, he hadn't seen Cuddy's figure that clearly in a couple of decades: "YAY! Wet T-shirt contest!" "You wish, House!" She laughed and went for her bag to change into a dry top. House felt it was expected of him to act like a competent adult here, so he took Gina back to the piano stool with him: "That was a very naughty thing to do, y'know, you shouldn't... Mmmmwwwwphrraaaah..." It was pointless, hilarious was hilarious, and it was good few minutes before they could both stop laughing.

As the evening was passing, with chatter, music and the occasional dance - well, he provided the music and the others did the dancing - House slowly felt paranoia creep up on him. He enjoyed being with all those people he loved, but he could only ever be the life and soul of the party for so long, things were getting way to crowded for him out here. He'd have to go out for a breather before it really closed in on him and ruined the night. Quietly, he stole away to the study for a calming quarter of an hour on the sofa, only to find a refugee already in there. "Welcome to the closed ward", a low voice said from the far end of the room. "Need a break, too?" Danny was hugging his knees in the corner of the sofa looking tense, but still managed to flash him a smile, in the rough direction of his left lapel. House nodded. "Mind if I join you?" "Not at all. Just don't tell Jimmy I fled later, he'll think weird things." House sat down at the desk and put his feet up on it, making sure to give Danny and himself maximum breathing space. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and they sat in convivial silence waiting for their brains to resume regular thought production.

Suddenly the sounds of a happy pillow fight filtering through from the bedroom where Wilson was supposed be tucking in Gina ceased, followed by a scream and a sob. "Mooooom! Mooooom! Mom come here!" House stuck his head out of the door to see a panicking Gina running from the bedroom. "Mom, I hurt Grampa!" She burst into tears. "What?" Everyone ran into the bedroom, and House nearly fell trying to follow them as fast as he could. Danny caught him. "Lean on me!" He gratefully accepted the assistance. In the bedroom, Wilson was lying on the floor unconscious.

Foreman was the first to move, he crouched down and put Wilson into the recovery position. House felt his legs giving. Not that they didn't rather a lot anyway, but this was in a new way. He sat down on the bed staring at Wilson in horror. From the corner of his eye he could see Danny hunched over in the corner, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself. He seemed to be having the hardest time coping. "Did he tell you where he put his meds?" He hissed at Stacy who was standing near him. "His coat pocket. I'll get them", and she went out. In the mean time, Rachel and Cuddy were trying to console Gina, who seemed convinced that this had been her fault and trying to get some sense out of her. "It's not your fault, I promise, whatever it is. You can't hurt a grown man like that." "But Grampa is old and frail..." She was inconsolable. "He might be old, but he's certainly not frail, that skull can take a lot", Cuddy tried to convince her. "Honey, you've got to tell us exactly what happened. Did he hit his head?" "No, I did!" A new flood of tears erupted from her. "No you didn't. Not hard enough to knock him out at any rate. Please, what happened?" "I... I..." She was trying hard to calm down. "We were having a pillow fight, and I slammed him over the head with the big..." More tears. Rachel took her into her arms. "You're nearly done, just a bit more." "...with uncle Greg's big cushion." She pointed out a big memory foam cushion House liked to put under his injured thigh on bad nights. "And then he..." Another sob, but she was beginning to calm down. "Then he sort of starting twitching and then he fell down." "Did he hit his head when he fell?" Gina shook her head. "He just twitched and fell." "Did he twitch all over or just on one side?" Foreman gave her an encouraging smile. "You're doing really well." She looked proud of being able to help now. "Just on one side. His mouth sort of went like that..." She twitched the right side of her mouth up and down. "Thanks, Gina, that was really good." Foreman ruffled her hair. "Stroke". He said then. "Or a haemorrhage", Cuddy suggested. House was beginning to feel exasperated. "Look, anyone feel dusting off the white board and suggesting Lupus? Or is someone actually gonna call an ambulance?" But Jada was already on the phone to them.

When the ambulance arrived, Rachel decided to stay behind with Gina because Gina was too small to come into the hospital with them anyway and was probably best off in bed, and Danny also made his excuses saying he needed some downtime to get his mind back into working order. The Valium Stacy had got for him was kicking in now and he was sitting at the coffee table with a purring Henry on his lap, stroking him with single-minded intensity. House was going to go in the ambulance with Wilson, who still hadn't regained consciousness, and the rest were going to follow in Foreman's car. When he wanted to get up to follow the EMT's with Wilson on a stretcher he found he couldn't: suddenly the pain was back worse than it had been in years, breaking through the counter impulses from his implant, the medical marihuana, everything. His thigh felt like someone had rammed a knife through it. Foreman noticed him struggling. "You got a wheelchair?" House nodded, his teeth clenched. "Corner of the closet." Foreman helped him into it. Jada gave him a big, motherly hug. "It'll be ok, God wants it to be..." House was too exhausted to come up with a sarcastic riposte.


	3. A cerebral Emergency

In the ambulance, he held Wilson's hand, and mumbled endearments to him. "It'll be ok, don't be scared, you'll be fine..." Why the hell was he doing that, he suddenly wondered. Wilson, being unconscious, was, after all, supremely disinterested. Still he couldn't stop. "Don't worry..." He was probably doing it to calm himself own more than anything else, but as long as Wilson didn't seem to mind he went on. His vital signs, as far as they could be judged through the artefacts of a the shuddering ambulance, were stable, that was something. They had almost arrived at the hospital when Wilson finally opened his eyes. They looked clear. House looked at him. "You collapsed. We're on the way to the hospital." Wilson nodded and opened his mouth. "Ah..." He was obviously trying to form words. It dawned on both of them at the same time what had happened. Frustration was forming on Wilson's face. His tongue was paralysed. He couldn't speak.

By the time the ambulance pulled into the ER-bay they had established that Wilson's mental faculties were unimpaired. He could also see and hear perfectly fine, but he couldn't speak or move the right side of his body. They had exchanged a wry smile at that discovery, at least his writing hand was working and he'd be able to communicate that way. Having to sign him in as his next of kin at the ER-reception while they were getting him ready for the MRI ten feet away was almost a bigger ordeal for House than what they'd already been through. It seemed like all basic personal data had disappeared from his head all of a sudden, the receptionist was looking at him as if she wondered if he'd fallen victim to senile dementia and he was beginning to feel nauseous as the delicious, fat fare he'd indulged in was reaching his shrivelled liver. Name of patient... Dr James Evan Wilson, fine. Address... Ok, yeah, easy. Date of birth... Ummmm... He actually had to think for a moment, his brain felt like it was rotting on the stem. "February 28th, 1969... Sorry, not feeling too great here." "That's ok", the receptionist said in the sweetest tones to the geriatric in the wheelchair she was seeing in front of her. Place of birth... He had to think for about a minute there... Ethnicity... Jewish... Religion... None... It was slowly coming together. "And your name, sir?" "Dr Gregory House." He had expected the time when his name still inspired terror and admiration in the same measure among the hospital staff to be long gone, yet some of the older nurses turned around and waved when they heard it. Good. It would make things a whole lot easier later on. "What's your relation to Dr Wilson?" Now, that one really made him hesitate. What was it? Not husband, they weren't married after all. Not boyfriend either, ew! Partner? Were they cowboys, or what? Wilson was his reason for getting up in the morning, for putting up with the pain day after day, for keeping off the Vicodin... But he couldn't very well tell that to the receptionist, could he? She was looking at him expectantly, but that didn't really help. "Life partner!" Stacy said behind him. "That ok with you, Greg?" "Guess so..." Her warm, southern tones were like a tender caress to his racing mind, he actually found himself calming down a little. "Thanks, Stacy!" "You're welcome!" She gently hugged him from behind. They still had a lot of love left for each other from all those years ago, and he was glad of that now. Finally he gave his cell number and was allowed in to see Wilson.

Wilson looked comfortable once you looked past the incessant drooling, and even managed a smile when he wheeled himself into the treatment-bay. Holy crap, he had never noticed how little space there actually was in here, hardly enough for the bed and one person standing up, and as for an extra person sitting down... He made a heroic attempt at getting up and sitting on the bed to get out of the way, but Wilson threw him a very stern look when he noticed. He scribbled something on a note pad they'd been clever enough to give him. "Stay in that chair or no pancakes ever again!" With five exclamation marks. "Only trying to help", he grumbled. More scribbling: "I'll need you fit and on your feet when I get out of here. You won't be if you don't take it easy now." House sadly had to agree to that and anyway, the doctor cut in. She was a pretty woman in her twenties who he immediately christened Cameron in his mind. "Hi, I'm Dr McAllister. I'll be attending to Dr Wilson tonight." He nodded. Scottish descent, too, huh? Bet she'd been in an extremely misguided marriage straight out of college? "We will now take Dr Wilson for an MRI. In this procedure we will..." House was getting bored. "Missy, I retired from this place when you were still in single digits. I've taken more MRI's than you've got shoes. Chances are that you learned everything you know about diagnostics from one of my ducklings. Just take him in and do your job, I need him in good health!" "Well excuse me, Mr...!" "DOCTOR Greg House..." "Oh..." Wow, the magic did still work. "I'm sorry, Dr House! You look a lot younger in the text books." She blushed, and Wilson gave a chuckle. The perks of being a legend...

Of course he was allowed into the MRI-suite after that, and when the images came out Foreman joined the party for an informal consult back in the ER. Dr McAllister recognised him from her neurology classes and was actually glad he was there. Wilson breathed a relieved sigh at the sight of the images, no tumour there to be seen. He'd suffered a haemorrhage instead, and the damage was clearly visible in the MRI, a dark area in the left hemisphere accounting for the hemiplegia, and there was a dark trail, presumably of blood, running down towards the medulla oblongata where it was obviously pressing on the hypoglossus, accounting for the tongue paralysis. "Right", Foreman said. "We'll have to get the blood out and fix the damaged vessels. That alone should have some effect. You'll probably be back talking in the morning." He gave Wilson an encouraging smile and turned to Dr McAllister. "We'll need a brain surgeon for this, the bleed is in a pretty awkward place. Is there anyone on call?" Dr McAllister thought for a moment. "Ummmm..." Wilson scribbled something. "GET CHASE!" "Well, here's hoping he hasn't gone home for a Christmas shrimp barbie..." But at least he was still working at PPTH, which was a glimmer of hope. "Is Dr Chase in town?" "I'll check." House was gradually growing more impressed with her, maybe his first sight judgement had been wrong after all. She was very cool and businesslike and didn't seem to be into overinvolvement the way Cameron had been.

Chase did turn out to be in town, thank goodness, and interrupted his quiet evening of present-wrapping immediately when presented with the situation. House found it hard to suppress a grin when he saw him coming in: even in his early sixties he still had adorable hair and looked like a girl. But there was no doubting that he was a damn fine surgeon, and having had to trust him with his own gourd back in the day, House saw no reason why he shouldn't be able to do some good on Wilson, too. His tones hadn't changed either, even after spending absolutely most of his life in the northern hemisphere he still sounded like he was off to hunt saltwater crocs. He exchanged happy Christmases and happy Hanukkahs and expressions of sympathies with the whole gang before he came into the bay, where it was now getting seriously crowded. House made an attempt at getting out of the way again, and was again treated to a stern look. Chase examined the MRI's with reading glasses on, he hadn't got any younger either. After a short conversation with Foreman he explained how he was going to access the injury site and then it was time to wheel Wilson off to the theatre.

"Go home and get some sleep", Stacy suggested when they were all sitting in the observation room above the theatre watching Wilson being put under. Foreman was scrubbing up in there, too, he was going to consult. "They'll be a couple of hours and you won't be able to do anything hanging around here anyway." "Sleep? As if..." That was an idea he had given up on for the time being. He was absolutely shattered after the long day he'd had, but there was no way he'd be able to even close his eyes to start with. He was in too much pain and his mind was all over the place. He called the apartment instead to keep the others updated. Rachel answered the phone in a low voice: "Don't wanna wake anyone up", she said, "Everybody else is asleep." House nodded: "Good. Well, you can tell them when they wake up. It's a haemorrhage and he's getting it repaired right now. His tongue is paralysed and his right side. We won't know anything for sure till he's out, though, there's a lot of blood pressing on the affected nerves. He might be fine when he's out, he might be better, he might be the same..." He sighed, and hoped to high heaven Wilson wouldn't be the same. "Here's hoping he'll be fine. Gina'd take it hard if her Grampa was never to be the same again." "She's not the only one who would..." He finished the call and sank back. Wilson would have to be fine, it was the only way. House was very aware that the only reason why he'd finally found a place of relative peace and security was Wilson doing most of the heavy lifting, both physically and emotionally. If he wasn't going to be able to do that anymore... The idea didn't bear thinking about. SENIOR CITIZENS' SUPPORTED HOUSING. TWO SWEET OLD CRIPPLES LIVING OUT THEIR COURAGEOUS LITTLE LIVES TOGETHER. Goodness... "You ok?" Cuddy looked concerned. "Yeah, perfect, best Christmas Eve I've ever had! Can you think of anything cooler than Wilson almost dying?" She shrugged: "Ok, bad time..." "You bet!" He put his face into his hands.


	4. Please let this be a Nightmare!

Next thing he remembered, Foreman was gently nudging him. "You fell asleep. Wilson's in recovery now, the surgery went well. You can come in if you want. Chase will be there with the details in a couple of minutes." "Ok..." "Is it ok if we leave now? The kids are coming round in a couple of hours." "Sure..." Foreman and Jada gave him a reassuring squeeze he was too dazed to shrug off and left. House went straight down to the post-op ICU, just to see Wilson, whichever state he'd be in, as long as he was alive, present, there in the flesh, that was all he cared about. He was all three things, though still unconscious and intubated. A feeding tube ran into his nose, as was routine for patients with tongue paralysis. All ok, nothing to worry about. House instinctively checked his vital signs, finding security in that routine action. Pulse strong and regular, blood pressure 130/ 92, oxygen saturation good, temperature normal, breathing spontaneously - good. The ventilator was set to 21% oxygen and CPAP, obviously more there as a precaution than for any pressing reason - good again. "Hi Jimmy..." He changed into the slightly more comfortable chair by Wilson's bed and took his right hand, partly to check for a reaction, partly just because he felt like it. No response. Ah well, maybe he was still too far under. How the hell did you hug someone in ICU? He'd seen his first ICU patient about two generations ago, but he'd never tried to hug one. They were patients, after all. But this was Wilson. He pondered. The oxygen tubing from the ventilator was in the way, the pharyngeal tube prevented any sort of full-on kissing, the nasogastric tube dangled where the pharyngeal tube wasn't, the blood-pressure hose blocked access from the other side, as did the cable from the finger sensor... How frustrating was that? Finally he settled for ruffling Wilson's hair, they both loved that. Only... Of course, they'd had to shave some of it off to open his skull, but he hadn't been quite prepared for the impact. That beautiful, thick head of hair... He blinked back tears, feeling absolutely ridiculous. There was big bald patch near Wilson's left ear, held together with a neat row of staples. "Cyber punk jewellery", it suddenly occurred to him. He shook his head and couldn't help but smile at his mind's jumps.

Chase came in. "You seem to be coping ok", he said seeing House smile. "I guess so. How is he?" "Stable." "I can see that! What's the prognosis?" Chase spread out the post-op MRI's across Wilson's torso. "Will you stop doing that?" It really made House angry. "You used to do it yourself all the time." "Yeah, but that was with patients. This is Wilson." "Not to me. Remember? Treat the disease, not the patient! Don't ever become involved with them!" "Fine, point taken..." They examined the images together. "We got all the blood out. There's some hypoxia damage, though, and I don't think we managed to do much about that. He'll live, that's certain. He'll probably get better, too, but a full recovery... Well, I can't see it happening." House had no reason to complain, he had spent a good few years terrorising Chase into being brutally honest with patients and family at all times after all. "Ok..." He took Wilson's right hand again. No reaction. Except - his eyelids fluttered and opened. He was awake. Oh great, so the hand was still just as paralysed as it had been.

With the ventilator he couldn't speak this way or the other, so the first thing they asked the nurse to get was another note pad and a pen. "What exactly happened?" Wilson scribbled immediately. "You were having a pillow fight with Gina and then you collapsed. She thinks it's her fault." "Oh crap!" He scribbled. "Don't worry, I'll explain it to her. Anyway, you want to see how you are now?" "Yep..." Chase showed Wilson the post-op MRI's one by one. "We got all the blood out that was pressing on the hypoglossus, so there's a good chance you'll be able to speak once you're extubated. There's some hypoxia damage to the area where the bleed occurred, and well... We've already seen your right hand isn't working. Try the leg!" More scribbling. "I already did. It's still paralysed." Chase looked worried for a moment but then shrugged it off. "It's early days yet. We'll start with the rehab as soon as you can get up, that'll make a huge difference." Wilson nodded. He seemed to take it all in his stride. But then Chase was right, it WAS very early days and over the next week or so things might chance hugely, almost to the point to complete recovery. Wilson took House's hand into his left and squeezed it. There was an encouraging look in his eyes. "It'll be ok", he scribbled. "I hope..." House tried his best to look cheerful: "I'll beat and kick you to the rehab appointments if I have to..." Wilson cocked his right eyebrow; at least that part of his right side was working. "Just stay strong, ok?" He scribbled. "We'll get through this." House sighed. "I'll try." "Go home and get some sleep! I'll let you know when I'm ready to see people. Got to straighten this out in my head right now." "Ok..." The notion of sleep seemed ridiculous, but then he had managed a couple of hours last night, so...

It was about ten in the morning when Stacy and Cuddy delivered House into the living room. "Be gentle with him", Stacy told the other guests. "He had a tough night." Rachel, Gina and Danny had obviously already been up a couple of hours, the apartment was clean and tidy and they rushed over to help him into his favourite chair by the window. "What do you want for breakfast? There's still some stuff left from last night, but if you want anything else, just let me know!" Danny, pacing up and down in his brother's kiss the cook apron, had obviously discovered his inner foodie. "Thanks..." House suddenly felt tired to his mangy old bones. "Just get me some decent coffee and a bagel with something low fat on it. My liver is screaming..." "Coming right up!" He disappeared into the kitchen, opening up the view of the study door where Gina was standing, looking shy and shell-shocked. House opened his arms towards her. "Come here and give your poor old uncle a hug, I need one right now." She burst into tears. Shit, that had been the wrong thing to say. "I'm so sorry, uncle Greg, I'm so sorry..." Oh fuck! "I didn't mean to hurt Grampa, we were just having a pillow fight!" "Gina, I mean it. This is not your fault and I'd love a hug from you know." "Are you sure?" She was still sobbing, but not as violently as before. "I'm sure." She came over to him slowly, warily, as if expecting punishment. Rachel took her hand. "Why isn't uncle Greg mad at me, Mom?" "Because there's no reason to be mad at you, promise. It was just a co-incidence." They reached House and he lifted her onto his lap with his last morsel of strength, carefully avoiding his right thigh. "Sorry, it's bad again." Gina nodded. He cuddled her for a moment. "Can I get a cuddle back now?" She nodded again and put her arms around him, not in her usual enthusiastic way but carefully, as if still making sure there wasn't some punishment looming somewhere. He cuddled her to his chest, and suddenly an idea struck him: "Cuddy! Get me Gray's Anatomy!" "Huh?" "It's in the study, second shelf from the top somewhere. I've got to explain something to Gina." Cuddy looked slightly confused but went to get the book. Once he had the book by his side, House opened it at the anatomy of the nervous system and instructed Gina to turn around. "Ok", he said after putting the book on her lap. "Let me explain to you what happened to Wilson and why it's not your fault." "Ok..." There was still insecurity in her voice. House, on the other hand, was beginning to feel better. He was on his home turf now, in a way, teaching medicine and knowing exactly what he was doing. "Ok, this is a head, right?" He pointed out a diagram on the page. "Yeah..." "This is the scalp, these are muscles, and this is the skull. The skull is bone, it's real hard, like the bones of the turkey last night." "Right..." "And under that are the meninges, and lots of liquid the brain floats in." He showed her all the different layers. "That's in your head, and in mine, and in your Mom's and Wilson's, and everyone's." "Ok..." "And here is where his brain had the bleed last night." He pointed at an area within the brain that was actually slightly deeper down than the injury site, but he had a good point to make after all. "Do you really think a bleed down there could be caused by you hitting him with a foam pillow? Through the scalp and the bone and the meninges and the liquid and the brain tissue over it?" Gina contemplated the drawing for a moment, then shook her head. "I guess not..." "You bet not!"

Danny arrived with a mug of fresh coffee - House's least favourite mug, but then how would he know - and a toasted bagel with blueberry jam. "That about right?" House was too tired to remark upon the mug. "Looks good to me, thanks! Feel like sharing?" Danny shook his head. "I'd better get home. They'll be sending out search parties or something if I don't. And I need to cool off a bit, this has been a mite stressful all in all..." He smiled apologetically, his eyes darting all over the place. "Keep me updated about Jimmy!" "Sure!" Stacy had overheard their conversation and was already calling for a cab to take Danny and herself to the railway station. Afterwards she came over for a good-bye hug. "Thanks for the invite, it was getting to be a great night..." House shrugged. "Tough shit I guess..." "Let me know when you're both ready to see people, I'll be straight down!" "Course..." House felt a wave of sadness wash over him. He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up again for a very long time. A single tear rolled down his face. Stacy kissed it away. "He'll be ok, I'm sure of it." And then the cab arrived.

With only Cuddy, Rachel and Gina left, House finished his breakfast and then made his excuses. He supplemented his pain medication with two extra Gabapentin - these were special circumstances after all, and his leg was giving him hell - and went to bed. He told the remaining guests they could go home if they wanted to, he'd be fine, but they all chose to stay. House wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse.

House was desperately tired but couldn't get to sleep whatever he did. He heaved himself over to the window to shut the blind, he tried drowning the voices in his mind with music, he tried slowing down his racing thoughts with that ancient short-acting tranquillizer commonly known as a purring cat, but nothing helped. What if Wilson didn't get better? What if he died? Ok, so it was unlikely, but in his mind he found himself picking out the music for the funeral anyway. What if the haemorrhage would result in permanent disability, however severe? What if that would throw their entire relationship off balance? What if they'd just be physically unable to cope? Even the idea of having to get a home help gave him the creeps, ew! This was a situation he had never contemplated in the remotest way. Wilson was ten years younger than him, he generally looked after himself, he didn't smoke - so what the hell? The person needing looking after here was him, not Wilson! And there was his thigh again, stabbing, burning, throbbing, not even settling down to a monotonous kind of pain it might be possible to fall asleep with. He groaned and tried to think of good things to distract himself. Music... But the one piece of music that wouldn't fade from his mind was the Billy Joel song that had started things for them. Good food and drink... Wilson's pancakes and his never quite as steely as intended glare when he helped himself to more bourbon than was good for him. Sport... Watching the world series together. It was hopeless. He realised he had curled up turtle-fashion, shielding himself from the big bad world out there. And another even nastier stab of pain. He groaned again and tried to find a more comfortable position. There was a knock on the door and Cuddy stuck her head in: "You ok? Anything we can do?" "YEAH! PISS OFF!" He roared before he even knew what he was saying. "Right, call me when you're ready to talk." She didn't seem shocked or disappointed. He heard them all leaving and quietly closing the front door. What a wonderful Christmas morning...

House figured he had fallen asleep eventually because he found himself woken up by his phone ringing. "Huh?" He felt groggy and bleary-eyed, if anything even worse than before. A nurse was on the other end: "Dr Wilson is ready to receive visitors now, if you'd like to come in..." "And he can't tell me that himself?" The nurse hesitated for a moment: "Well..." "Let me guess, he still can't speak." "No, he can't, but it's..." "...early days yet, I know I know. Any improvements at all?" Rustling paper, she was obviously consulting his file. "No, still exactly the same as last night. Oh, don't look for him in the ICU, he's in the stroke unit now." House sighed. That didn't sound good, no improvement at all more than... He checked his watch... 16 hours after the event. He found himself wondering if it really had been only blood pressing on Wilson's subglossus or if there was anything more sinister going on there. Should he mention that to him? But then it would probably slip out anyway. "Tell him I'll be in as fast as I can. That's still slow, but I'll do my best." He finished the call and gulped down a couple of painkillers at random. Just as long as they dulled the pain enough to let him function... Shower. Clean boxers, T-shirt, socks. He did his best to tidy himself up because he didn't want Wilson to feel he wasn't coping. Clean jeans, shirt, fleece. He sat down on the bed to catch his breath for a moment, even the short walk from the bed to the shower and back had taken it out of him. How on earth was he going to cope without Wilson right there with him? How were they both going to cope without Wilson at peak performance? For a moment he felt despair welling up in him. Then his gaze fell upon the framed photo Wilson kept on his nightstand. There they were, at a poker night God knew how many years ago, having a good time and smiling into the camera. That had been a good few years before they had fallen in love good and proper, but looking at it he found it hard to understand why it had still taken them so long. Everything they meant to each other was in that picture, all their togetherness and all the good things they had shared. Well, they'd just have to put up a fight, wouldn't they? He slipped the picture into his backpack to bring it in to Wilson and flashed a grim smile at the mirror, ready to move into battle. He wrapped himself up in a couple more layers of clothes and went down to the car.

In the lobby, he met Mrs Garrison, their ground floor neighbour. "Happy Christmas, Dr House, how did your party go?" He gave her a weak smile. "Happy Christmas!" "Where's Dr Wilson, anything the matter?" She wasn't used to seeing him out and about on his own, certainly not when the ground was slippery with ice and sleet. "He's in hospital, I'm just going in to see him." "Oh no, is it serious?" House decided there was no point in telling her the full extent of it. "He'll be ok eventually I guess..." "Do you want a ride in? I'm just about to go into town anyway..." She meant well, but her car was parked about fifty yards away and the Volvo was standing in the handicapped space right outside the door. "Thanks, I'm ok. Wish your husband and everyone a happy Christmas from me." "I will, and wish Dr Wilson well from me!" "Ok..." He went out to the car wondering if he should have accepted her offer. It wasn't that he particularly liked driving in these conditions, his reactions weren't what they had been. With an expression of grim decisiveness he got into the car and made quite a meal of stowing away the walker, extremely nostalgic for the days when a cane had been all it had taken to keep him vertical.


	5. Home alone

Turning into the parking lot at the hospital he realised he hadn't the faintest idea where the handicapped spaces for visitors were, he had never needed them after all. After looking around for a couple of minutes, he eventually pulled into his old space by the entrance: he figured that whoever it was assigned to now wouldn't be in on Christmas day, and anyway, anyone who didn't feel that amount of compassion for an 82 year old cripple didn't deserve to live, right? He went straight up to the stroke unit where Wilson received him with a smile. He had been extubated and was doing fine breathing without help, but except for that the nurse seemed to be right, no improvement. He was sitting in bed, propped up with pillows on the right so he wouldn't topple to the side and occasionally dabbing at his mouth with a tissue to stem the drool stream that was relentlessly flowing from its corners. His nourishment was still coming through a tube. On the bedside table there was a laptop, obviously to help him communicate. "Hey!" "Hey!" "Wow, you CAN speak!" Wilson gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Well, that's pretty much all I can say right now..." Wah! What the hell? That wasn't Wilson's voice, that was a synthetic surfer dude coming from the laptop! Whoa, creepy! Wilson chuckled at his appalled face: "It's just easier than making people read all the stuff I'm typing. And it's not like this is new to you, is it?" Of course it wasn't but, again, that had been with patients, not with anyone who had actually meant something to him. "Ok, yeah, but couldn't you have picked a better voice?" "Believe me, the others were even worse. I went through the entire menu, there are about 20 options and they all suck." "Seriously?" "Seriously! Here, check!" They went through the menu together, laughing at the scary voices and accents assistive technology manufacturers obviously expected their clients to communicate through. For a moment, everything seemed like it should be, they were sitting together having fun. Only... It WAS in the stroke unit, and the reason why they were doing it... "So you can't even sit upright?" "Nope, complete hemi-paralysis..." "Shit!" Wilson nodded vigorously. "And of course all the therapy departments are on skeleton staff because of the holiday season. But they'll assess me later, so with a little luck I'll still get a speech therapy session today." "What about physical therapy?" "I asked for the speech therapy to be prioritised." He pointed at the feeding tube. "This is not exactly my idea of gourmet cooking." "Guess not..." They exchanged a hug and House kissed the shaved patch above Wilson's left ear as if that would help the hair grow back faster. "Oh, I brought you something." He got out the picture from the nightstand. "Want me to put this anywhere?" "Are you sure you don't need that more than me right now? I have lots of people around me here, you'll be alone in the apartment." "I'll be ok..." Wilson scrutinised him. "Well, as long as you believe that yourself..." He took the picture and set it up next to the laptop. "Thanks for bringing that in!" Their eyes met and for a second both their defences crumbled. They held each other as tight as they could with only three good arms between them for a moment, pretending they weren't biting back tears. "Love you!" "Love you!" The voice synthesizer didn't have Wilson's gentle undercurrent of irony, and House found himself thoroughly spooked by the seriousness that gave to these words. Suddenly they sounded like he really meant it. But then he probably did.

House's musings were interrupted by the arrival of the speech therapist. He left them to it and went downstairs for a cup of coffee

Over the coffee House took the opportunity to update everyone on Wilson with a group text. He had dawdled with the possibility of apologising to Cuddy for his earlier outburst but then decided not to bother, she knew him well enough to take it the right way after all.

When he came back up half an hour later, Wilson received him with a slight frown: "Where did you run off to?" "Run?" House gave his creaky undercarriage a tragicomic look. "I just went for a coffee. No point in having family in the room during treatment, is there?" Wilson cocked an eyebrow, in lieu of vocal modulation: "Well, maybe I could decide that?" "Whatevah... Anyway, what did the therapist say?" "She suggested a two way approach, trying to get my tongue to come back and at the same time training the other muscles to do its job as well as possible in case it doesn't. I guess that makes sense." House nodded. "Sounds good to me. Still that subglossus had better recover. Some things you do with your tongue..." Wilson grinned. "Oh, you'd miss them?" "Oh yes..." "I'll make an extra effort just for you. And because I don't want to be on pureed food for the rest of my life." True, with a paralysed tongue pureed food, if that, would be the best Wilson could expect. For a moment his expression clouded over. "Give uncle Jimmy a hug, I need one..." House was only too happy to oblige, he was in bad need of a hug himself and the nurses all seemed to be looking the other way. And... "Hey, do that again?" "Huh?" "Your right arm!" "Wha'?" "T" Wasn't part of Wilson's consonant supply right now. "It's coming back! Seriously, it was moving!" Wilson disentangled himself from the hug to get to the laptop again: "If so, it wasn't deliberate. Must have been a reflex." "It still moved..." "Right, ok..." Wilson tried to move the arm, his face screwed with concentration. And there it was, a tiny twitch of his hand, but movement nevertheless. "So was that deliberate?" Wilson just nodded, with a huge smile. That night House went home feeling much better.

Unfortunately, the elation didn't last very long. Ok, so Wilson's hand was sort of coming back, but what about the rest? By the time House got home, to no delicious food smells, no smiling hello and no telenovela but a smelly litter box and a hungry cat it had evaporated totally. He gave Henry a sad little smile: "Missing him, too?" House crouched down painfully to give the cat a cuddle. "We'll just have to make things work between us for a bit I guess." He went to the kitchen and put some of last night's chowder into the microwave. Not that he had any sort of appreciable appetite, but he knew he had to eat. "Here, have some, too!" Another bit of chowder went into Henry's bowl, very much to the delight of its owner who lapped it up purring like a diesel. He gave Henry fresh water and himself a cup of instant, what was the point of making an effort if Wilson wasn't there to have the coffee with? God, life sucked. His leg hadn't hurt as badly for years, there was no one there to make him feel better, the litter box was still smelly, there was nothing interesting on TV, and he was ALONE. House sat down and thought for a bit. For goodness sake, he had lived alone for quite a lot of his life, and he had managed then, hadn't he? He'd read, watched TV, played the piano, all in blissful solitude, with no one there to change the channel or complain. But then maybe the solitude hadn't been that blissful after all... Henry was heeding the call of nature with what looked like an expression of disgust on his face. Alright alright... House wasn't quite sure he could take another crouch. So he sat down on the walker and cleaned the litter box to the best of his ability. Yes, there was reason why that was usually Wilson's job, ew!

What now? He reheated another bowl of chowder and poured himself a bourbon. Once he had that down his throat the piano was almost looking inviting. Beethoven? It sounded like an idea worth exploring: the rumbling c-minor thunder of the Sonata Pathetique seemed to reflect the way he was feeling as closely as anything. But not even that seemed to work, Wilson wasn't there to listen and comment, or even not to give a shit, just to be there. In the end he just downed another liberal portion of painkillers and went to bed. Not that that did anything. He was tired and sad and in pain, sleep would have been a welcome relief, but it just wasn't happening. He needed Wilson around, and if it was just his warm, sleeping body next to him. Call him? What was the point, whichever voice he'd get to hear, it wouldn't be his. Feeling pathetic as hell, he got up again and went to find himself a picture for reassurance. Wilson had been right, he needed the one from the nightstand. But in lieu of that... Wasn't there one on the mantelpiece that had both of them in it? He went to get it. It was a group-shot, but it was better than nothing. He remembered the moment it had been taken, at Wilson's retirement party five years ago. Cuddy had given it to them, at the time they hadn't even noticed the flash of the camera. He was kissing Wilson on the cheek, one of the few times he had actually been doing that in public, and they were in the middle of a mob all waiting to clink glasses. He had been happy that moment, looking forward to leisurely shared breakfasts everyday and being able to do whatever they wanted together whenever they felt like it. And now? After what had actually been five years of bliss he was alone in bed again, wondering what the hell Tomorrow would bring. He set down the picture on his nightstand, only to pick it up again immediately and gaze at it. "Night, Wilson..." He was feeling immensely silly for saying good night to a small, printed face, but well... He turned off the light and started his tossing and turning routine. Oh great, it was going to be another one of those nights, yeah? He wished the wall had been more solid, at least he could have banged his head against it then.


	6. A Prank and major Issues

The phone rang. Huh? At this time? He snatched it up immediately, fearing bad news. There was a female voice on the other side, a smoke-ravaged alto with an indefinable accent. "Hi Greg, remember me?" She cooed. "Huh?" Who the hell was that? Why did she know his name? "This is Candy, feel like a good time?" What? It had been a pretty long since he'd last had a good time the way she was obviously referring to. "Joey says you might finally pay me for the last time then." WHAT? He owed money to a hooker? Her pimp was on to him? SHIT! Whoever that was, he hadn't been with her for at least 20 years! Alright, so there was obviously no statute of limitations on such debts, but... Sure as hell he had always paid them? And if he'd ever been too stoned or passed out, sure as hell they had helped themselves from his pocket anyway? Oh crap... "Look, this is a bad time..." "Joey says he'll need the money pretty soon, he might come right round to you..." ARGH! He tried to keep the panic out of his voice: "Listen, Missy, that was at least 20 years ago..." Then, though... Was that typing in the background? "WILSON!" A roaring laugh, a click, more typing, surfer dude again. "Thanks, the panic in your voice was just too good to be true!" Now they were laughing together. "You asshole, scaring the shit out a sick old man like that!" "And you really once had a hooker called Candy?" "No idea, I never asked them their names." "Hm yeah, I guess so... Isn't the voice just great?" "Made for playing hookers, totally..." He was grinning into the phone now, and he was sure Wilson was, too. "Anyway, night House!" "Night, Wilson, thanks for the laugh." And he did truly appreciate it, that prank had been like a huge big hug. After finishing the call, he immediately fell asleep and didn't wake up till the morning.

When House got into the hospital the next morning, the physio was with Wilson and he chose to step outside: seeing his beloved being prodded and pummelled and bent in unusual ways was something he wasn't quite ready for yet. Instead he called everyone he thought might be interested in Wilson's well-being and gave them the latest progress reports, talking prognoses, therapy options, assistive technology and the like until he felt he was going blue in the face. After all that medical talk, calling Danny was a treat; they trusted each other, and it felt good just to be able to answer simple layman's questions for a change and focus on how the whole thing was actually impacting on them. Though... Hm... "Do you think he's ready to see people yet?" That was the question House had been dreading, the two brothers' relationship had been strained for the best part of their lives, largely because Wilson had never quite managed to put his guilt about Danny's homeless days behind him. He'd either just say no, or he'd feel obliged to ask Danny to visit and two hours of hmm-ing and hah-ing and small-talk would ensue, with the constant undercurrent of "Oh my God, if I say the wrong thing now he'll freak out." Not a good thing for any of them really, and a shame, too; as an only House had always thought of a brother as a cool thing to have. He sighed. "I'll talk to him, but you know what it is..." "Well, whatever he wants, let me know about it. Good to hear he's making progress. And if there's anything I can do to help..." "I'll be in touch, ok? Oh, physio is coming out, laters!" He went in and braced himself for finally talking sense into Wilson about his brother.

First a big hug, though, and the discovery that it was just a little more two-armed than the night before. "Hey, that's great, any other developments?" The reply was a long-ish sequence of muddy syllables. Oh God... "Right, let me guess, you're supposed to practice your speech?" Wilson nodded and gave him a "Sorry, I wish I could change this" Sort of smile. Another, shorter sequence of laboured but sadly still hard to understand articulation. "No laptop for an hour, something like that?" Another nod. Fuck, it didn't seem quite fair to try and talk sense into a man who couldn't really talk back. But how the hell was Wilson supposed to practice his speech with if they weren't gonna say anything? Small talk? Weather? How pathetic was that? "We'll have to talk when you're actually able to, whichever way." "Why?" That had come out clearly enough, not much tongue involvement there. "Nothing to worry about, just a thing that crossed my mind." "Ok..." They lapsed into silence again. Eventually House piped up, there was no point in avoiding the subject. "Wilson..." "Huh?" "Even if we don't talk about that stuff now, we'll have to talk about something..." "Hm yeah", or something along those lines. "Unless you want to use a surfer dude stand-in for the rest of your life." Wilson giggled. His reply sounded suspiciously like "Well, I could use Candy every now and then..." "No way!" They laughed. "What a shame, you were hilarious worrying!" House found he was slowly getting attuned to the bad articulation, going by speech rhythms, syllables and possible intention to decipher Wilson's thoughts rather than the few and far between clear words and syllables. It was all about knowing him well enough to read his mind really...

They managed to make it through the hour with more banter but were both glad when Wilson fired up the laptop again and they were able to talk as properly as current circumstances allowed. "So how's the progress report?" "They'll start tying up my left hand today so I'll have to use the bad one." "Ok... So can you use a trackball with that one yet?" "I hope... Anyway, it's the leg they're really getting worried about, at least the arm is starting to move again." "And the leg is still dead?" "Just as much as the tongue..." "Shit..." "I know..." They exchanged a worried look, both knowing that if Wilson ended up in a wheelchair they'd both end up in assisted accommodation, talk about worst nightmares... They held each other for a moment, finding reassurance in their closeness. "Anyway, Wilson, we need to talk!" "About what?" "About Danny..." "Oh God, I should have known. He called you, didn't he?" "No he didn't. I called him to let him know how you were, the way you do with family. We had a pretty good talk and he'd love to come and help whichever way he can." "And which way exactly could he? This is way too stressful for him!" "Vacuuming the floor is? I'll need someone to help me do it..." "Well, if it's that kind of thing you're talking about..." Wilson gave him an "Ok whatever" Kind of look. "Well, and he'd love to see you, too." "No way!" "And may I ask you why not?" "You know perfectly well why!" House was getting annoyed. "Well, yes I do, and I wish you'd finally admit it to yourself! It's got nothing to do with the disease, you know that's well controlled and he hasn't freaked out in years, you know he doesn't travel on his own, you know he's careful with everything he does, so I'll tell you why you don't want him to come here. It's your stupid, fucking guilt about something that happened almost 50 years ago!" He looked Wilson straight in the eye. "WILSON! Get over it!" Wilson looked devastated for a moment. "I wish I could..." "Well, finally accepting him as your brother again would sure as hell be a step in the right direction!" "But how can I after letting him down like that? House, I practically made him homeless for over ten years." "No you didn't. Whatever happened that night, it wasn't your fault. What should you have done, fail your exam?" "I could have just picked up the phone and told him I'd get back to him." "As if. Wilson, Danny is a lot tougher than you or me, or he'd never have survived on the street to start with. He's well able to take the stress of this. And he wants to help us through this the way a brother should. Sounds pretty sane to me all in all. LET. HIM. COME!" "You don't understand. We used to be so close, nothing was ever the same again after that happened." "So here's your chance to get close again. Why do you think he gave you as next of kin back when they picked him up on the street?" "Because he knew I'd come, that's all..." "That's all? What the hell, Wilson, how stupid are you? Exactly, he knew you'd come. He was relying on you as much as ever. Now, what does that mean?" Wilson thought for a moment, and then typed very hesitantly. "He wasn't thinking I let him down." House gave him a mock-appreciative look and served up an extra slice of sarcasm. "Well done, Jimmy! So what should you do?" "Look, I don't want him here, ok? It's not good for him!" "Wilson, for Christ's sake, your brother is 67 years old, and he's not stupid. He can perfectly well judge for himself what's good for him and what isn't!" "Oh yeah, of course, because that's exactly what schizophrenics are so renown for!" "If you could just once look at Danny as just your brother as opposed to just the headcase..." "Headcase? Listen, if I had a problem with headcases we wouldn't be having this argument cos we wouldn't be in a fucking relationship!" "Well there you go, if you can take my mental health problems then why not Danny's?" "There's a difference, I knew you were insane from day one. Would a normal person ever bail out a total stranger because they're bored?" It was creepy to be told all this emotionally charged stuff in a perfectly calm, pleasant Californian voice and House was beginning to find it hard to focus. "Would a normal person ever tell their own brother not to come and see them in a time of distress because of something that happened almost 50 years ago and didn't even piss him off?" "Honestly, House, you can't understand, you never had a brother..." "So? Try me!" Wilson was looking genuinely distressed now. "It's not the same with you and Danny. When I took you on I knew full well what was expecting me, the mental illness was just part of who you were. But with Danny..." He sighed. "We were so close as kids... We were just two nice Jewish boys from the suburbs with our lives laid out for us. I was gonna be a doctor, he was gonna be a lawyer, we were gonna make our Mom proud, all that stuff. At my uncle's funeral we held each other's hands so hard our knuckles turned white cos we had both promised him not to cry." House gave Wilson an encouraging smile, if he was finally going to puke it all up he was not gonna stand in his way. "And then he got sick. I remember it so well, it was just a couple of months before he was going to graduate high school. Suddenly he said I was trying to kill him. He graduated ok and started college, but then started deteriorating; on the day he should have been writing his first year exams, he was in the closed ward thinking there were death rays coming through the walls. It pretty much tore our family apart. I tried to be there for him, but when he was having one of his episodes it was impossible to get near him, and when he was lucid all I could think about was what might trigger the next attack. I was never able to relate to him as my brother again, but I figured talking would help him, so I always picked up the phone, no matter when or what. Except for that one night..." Wilson had tears in his eyes now. House took him into his arms. "Ok, I see your point..." He held him for a bit. "Better?" "Guess so..." "Right. And now do yourself the favour and let him see you. You're both older, you've both been through a lot, you can both look back on all that with 20/20 hindsight. You'll be able to start over now. Danny has obviously never stopped relating to you as his brother, he wants to do the brotherly thing, so here's your chance to reclaim what you had." Wilson thought for a moment, then nodded very slowly. "Ok, tell him to come!"


	7. Tox Screen

Well, that was the Danny matter settled, which was definitely something. House wasn't meant to have peace for long, though, because they'd just sat in convivial silence for a couple of moments when Wilson's medical team came in. "Morning", a young doctor who House had never seen before shouted cheerfully. "So how are we today?" House could see on Wilson's face that he was making a supreme effort to suppress the old "Well I don't know how you are" Joke. "Same as yesterday I guess. Well, I think the arm might be a little better." "Right, I see..." The doctor gave him a stuffed ball. "Can you squeeze this?" Wilson tried, but not much was happening. "Well, what do you think?" "Hmm... Can you lift the arm?" That looked a little better. "Your right leg?" Wilson's face was screwed up with concentration. "No!" The doctor looked concerned for a moment. "The tongue?" Another moment of intense concentration. "No!" "Hm, that's weird, now the blood is gone the nerve should have started to recover. But don't worry, some people just take longer than others." To House all that sounded dangerously laissez faire. "Yeah, with hypoxia damage. But that part of the brain should have never been damaged that way. What if the blood was covering up something else? I think we should look for a tumour pressing on the subglossus here!" The doctor seemed to notice him for the first time and raised her eyebrows. "I do think it's admirable that you researched your... Friend's illness, but..." "Dr Gregory House, pleased to meet you!" The eyebrows dropped along with her jaw. "Oh I'm sorry, Dr House! I'm Dr Khan, and the pleasure is all mine. I used to be on Dr Foreman's team, it's a thrill to finally meet you in person!" "Cut the crap, just scan him for a tumour!" "Ummmm... House, hello?" Wilson - or rather surfer dude - was piping up. "Yeah?" "I'm sure you might have a point, you usually do, but can we stop right here for the moment?" "Huh?" Wilson looked him in the eyes and put his good arm around him. "House, this is the department head of neurology. I'm sure Foreman taught her all he knew, and you taught Foreman all you knew. She's your academic grandchild. If we don't trust her, who can we trust?" "Wilson, it's not about trust, it's about your life!" "It's about our life, we might as well be realistic about it. But still..." He sighed and dabbed his mouth. "You're not here as my attending and I'm not here to give you a tumour consult. That's all long gone. Right now I'm the patient and you're family, and that's what I need you here as. I'm in good hands with the people working here now, and I'm sure if there's any real reason to look for a tumour they will. I don't think there is one, by the way, and that's MY area of expertise, so there!"

Doctor Khan was looking back and forth between them, obviously unsure what to do. Of course she was the one in charge of Wilson's treatment, but her expression showed clearly that she harboured far too much admiration for the legend she had just met to just dismiss his suggestion. House turned to her: "Ok, you heard Wilson, just do your job! Actually, do it anyway, whatever he or I might have to say on the matter. Follow your own judgement, not that of some frustrated old cripple you remember from your textbooks. You're right to admire me, but thoughtless admiration can kill. If you think he has a tumour, look for it, if you don't, don't!" The doctor slowly nodded. "Ok..." She thought for a moment. "I'll keep the tumour idea in the back of my mind, it's probably something that should be excluded just to be sure. For the moment I'll leave you to the allied staff, to me this does seem more like a matter of rehab than anything else. Does that sound good to both of you?" House shot her a sharp look: "It's not Wilson or me it has to sound good to! You're the attending, you make the decisions!" The doctor smiled, with a slightly superior air: "Indeed, Dr House. But the law says I can't make decisions over the patient's head." He grinned: "1:0!" Then he pronounced both their foremost thought: "What do you think is his prognosis?" She looked at Wilson first: "Is it ok to involve Dr House in this?" Wilson nodded: "Absolutely. We're a couple, so whatever is life-changing for me is life-changing for him. He has a right to know."

"Right... May I sit down for a moment?" House gestured at his walker. "Be my guest!" She sat down on its seat and gathered her thoughts for a moment. "Ok, you're doctors, you can handle the truth I guess. The truth is - I don't know. It makes perfect sense about the leg, that's hypoxia damage and it'll take its time, if it's ever going to get back to normal at all. But the tongue makes no sense whatsoever. If it was really just blood pressing on the nerve, it should have started to move again by now, and it's definitely a worry. That's why I'll keep both your opinions about the tumour option in mind, you're people who know what they're talking about, if I admire you or not." She sighed. "It's tough being the boss at times like this. Sometimes I wish Dr Foreman was still here for a consult." House scrolled down his contact list to the letter "F" And gave her his cell. "Call him! He was in the next room when the haemorrhage happened and was on the scene within a couple of seconds." "Oh my God, really? Thanks, I didn't know that. There might be a whole lot of information there to help us." Foreman, obviously seeing House's number of the display, snatched up the phone at once, but turned out to be just as mystified as his former duckling. "No idea, it really doesn't make sense. Did you exclude a tumour?" "Not yet, but I'm keeping it in mind." Surfer dude again: "Foreman, it's Wilson, surfer dude here is my stand in. I honestly don't think this is a tumour. If anything, we should probably look at primary neurological conditions." House put Foreman on speaker. "Hmmmmm... Well, you're the patient. Actually, why not do both?" "Um, do I get a say, too?" Wilson's actual attending physician was getting just a little impatient. "Listen, I'll do some more research on this, and in the mean time we go on as we did, ok?" Everyone agreed, for the moment it seemed like the best idea. But after the medical decisions for the day had been made, the physical therapist had had her say and Wilson had done his speech exercises with pathetically little success, they were still stuck with the same question as before. House waited till they were alone to ask it: "Wilson, what if you don't get better?" They held each other for a long time.

When House came home that day, his brain was buzzing with a new sense of purpose. Ok, maybe it wasn't a tumour that was wreaking havoc in the depths of Wilson's brain, he was ready to concede that. But still he didn't believe for a minute that there was nothing down there to account for the on-going paralysis, it just didn't make sense. Forcing himself to trust Wilson's instincts about tumours, he went straight for basically everything else. Medullary infarction? OW! It was rare but it had been known to happen, so he filed it away as possibility. Some medications could cause tongue-paralysis as a side-effect, but Wilson had been on the same stuff for years, so why only now? He checked the bathroom cupboard anyway. Zoloft? No, unheard of. Ibuprofen? In small children maybe, but Wilson hardly ever took one anyway, the lucky, painfree bastard! Valium? He took one maybe once a month, that could hardly account for sudden serious side-effects, let alone previously unheard of ones. Oh shit, the Lamictal. House took two, hoping fervently forgetting to take them in the morning hadn't already messed up his brain-chemistry for the rest of the week. Wait... Lamictal? There had been cases of tongue-paralysis in patients on that! Wilson hadn't confused the containers, had he? But wouldn't he have suffered other side-effects first, psychological ones? Still, it was a possibility, if a remote one. Anyway, what else was there? House went through his vast array of painkillers, wondering why exactly he did it because if any of them caused tongue paralysis it sure as hell would have hit him first, right? Marinol, Gabapentin, Lyrica... Anyway, this was pointless, Wilson had no reason whatsoever to take any of these. Risperdal? Huh? Look who'd forgotten his meds again, whenever. The expiry date on them was two years ago, so he just chucked them out. Lunesta? No way... Zyrtec? Unheard of, too... That concluded the search of the bathroom cupboard.

Well, the Lamictal was a lead of sorts anyway, and one he wanted to investigate immediately. He called Wilson: "Hm?" "Wilson, is there the slightest possibility you took some of my Lamictal over the past few days?" "Huh?" "Seriously, they can cause tongue paralysis!" "Hmmmm..." Typing, then surfer dude. "Well, even if I had taken them, wouldn't the side-effects have worn off by now?" "Not necessarily..." "Whatever, I doubt it this way or the other. There's a reason why I put on my glasses before getting out of bed." "Wilson, I just want you to consider the possibility and tell the neurologist." "Well, if you want to clutch at straws that's your own funeral but I'd rather tell her about something more realistic." House was indignant: "I'm not clutching at straws!" "Yes you are! Side-effect is our get out of jail free card, I'll be fine in a couple of days, I'll get back on my feet, great. Only it's not gonna happen..." "Ok, so maybe I am clutching at straws, and who can blame me? I'd rather see you fine in a couple of days than stuck with one of the six dozen degenerative neurological conditions that can present with hypoglossal symptoms. MS, Parkinson's, progressive bulbar palsy, anything else you want?" Wilson sighed. "House, calm yourself down and get to bed! For starters we've already agreed you're not supposed to act as my attending, and then it's not even 48 hours since the haemorrhage. It's silly to get yourself wound up like that!" Wound up... Wound up... "Hey, Wilson, just one more thing! I promise I'll try to calm down then! I found an old container of Risperdal in the bathroom cupboard!" "Risperdal? What?" "Prescribed to Daniel Wilson, expiry date two years ago. They can cause tongue paralysis, and you're sure as hell more likely to mistakenly take tablets with your surname on them than with mine." "So he forgot his meds AGAIN?" "Yes, once, more than two years ago. And now let's move on with our lives, Danny's health is his own responsibility. We're concerned with yours here." "Ok ok, I'll get them to run a tox screen. And strangle Danny tomorrow as soon as he comes in." "Ok... Feeling better now. Night, Wilson, Benhibik!" Now he was feeling on more solid ground it seemed easier to say it in a language not his own again. "I know..." House imagined him smiling and felt happy for a fleeting moment. "And now plug yourself into some Bach and take Henry to bed with you. Take a Lunesta if you need it, there's no point in wearing yourself down; I'll need you fit for a while." House rolled his eyes: "Yes, uncle Jimmy!" "Night, little one!" "Night!" He finished the call feeling a whole lot better and picked out an old recording of the chamber music. Concentus Musicus Vienna, Nicolas Harnoncourt - aaaaaaaah... He felt his shoulders drop for the first time all day, Bach's mathematical harmonies worked their way through his messy brain like Aleppo soap and a soft cloth.


	8. Nightmares can always get worse

The next morning House took longer than usual to get ready because for some reason he kept returning to the open closet, just to stick his nose into its neat freak side for a bit. Sea island cotton, ill-judged ties, nerdy chinos - he definitely hadn't chosen Wilson for his sense of style. But who cared, there was a slight hint of his after shave all over the clothes, the sweaters reflected the shape of his body, every shirt and every pair of socks reminded House of things they'd done together. He cuddled a sweater to his face and chest, then shook his head. This was stupid, how old was he for God's sake? With an expression of grim determination, he got dressed, fed the cat and himself and went out. On his way out of the house, he ran into Matty, one of their medical student neighbours. He and his roomie Jack occasionally came up for informal tutorials and they liked each other. "Oh, hi Greg, how was your Christmas?" "Sort of medium... Got a minute? You might be more up to date in these things than me. Unexplained tongue paralysis in a 72 year old Ashkenazi Jew, no previous neurological history, recent brain haemorrhage with damage to the left hemisphere and blood flow to the medulla oblongata. All the blood has been removed, so can't press on the hypoglossus. Patient's been on Zoloft for a couple of decades but has a generally healthy lifestyle. Any ideas?" Matty gave him a strange look: "Is Jimmy ok?" House sighed and sat down on the stairs. "No, you got me. He had a brain haemorrhage on Christmas Eve. Right-sided hemiplegia, but he seems to be recovering from that, and that tongue thing I just can't find any sort of explanation for." "Tumour pressing on the nerve?" "I thought that, too, but he says it can't be and I trust his expertise." "Hmmmmmmm... That sounds pretty shitty..." "Well guess what... I asked him to get a tox screen done; he might have taken something he shouldn't have giving him the paralysis, but, well, if it's not that..." He suddenly felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. "...it might be all kinds of real serious crap", Matty finished the sentence for him. "Yes..." Matty patted him on the back. "I can't think of anything right now, but I'll read up on the possibilities, ok? Say hi from me!" "Ok..." He gave Matty a wave and went out.

At the hospital, he ran into Stacy at the cafeteria. "You're in early, is Danny upstairs?" Stacy nodded and hugged him. "I left them alone, seems like they have a lot of talking to do." "If Wilson has taken anything I told him yesterday to heart at all, they do. Mind if I join you?" He got himself a coffee and sat down with her. "Don't you want to go up first?" He shook his head: "I'll give them some more time on their own." In truth he was trying to delay hearing the result of the tox screen, just in case it was clear and Wilson really did have something more serious, but he wasn't quite in the mood for opening up about that. Instead they just chatted and did their best to cheer each other up about Wilson.

Eventually Danny joined them, all smiles. "Holy shit, what happened? I haven't seen Jimmy that open and chatty since my teens. Seems the haemorrhage did him some good after all." House smiled back: "I gave him a good long lecture yesterday. Good to see it worked." With that he went upstairs to face the music. Wilson received him with a smile: "Thanks for that lecture", surfer dude said. "It's about fifty years since I last was so relaxed with Danny." "My pleasure, he seemed happy enough, too. So..." "It's clear! Sorry, no drugs in my system that shouldn't be there." House sat down: "Shit!" Suddenly his agreeable mood was gone and forgotten. He frowned, feeling scared. "Any other news to cheer me up?" "Ignoring the sarcastic angle to that one for a moment, yes actually!" "Oh... What is it?" "My side is coming back. I sat up for about half an hour this morning without the pillows. Then I got tired. But it's a start I guess." "Yes, it is..." But House's worry about the tongue paralysis was far too overwhelming to feel any real elation about that bit of progress. All sorts of neurodegeneretative diseases were slam-dancing around his mind, progressive bulbar palsy, MS, primary lateral sclerosis... Of all of those, PLS was probably the best one to have, but even that sucked. Wilson looked at him: "You're scared, aren't you?" "I'm fine!" "No you're not! Look, it'll be ok, just give it time!" "I. AM. FINE!" House stomped out and went home.

And fat lot of use that was. Matty had stuck a post-it to their door: "Did you consider Neuro-Behcet's?" Oh God... Neuro-Behcet's was one of the few diseases he had heard of and knew to be nasty, but had never encountered throughout a long and distinguished diagnostic career, so House sat down and read up on it. Yes... It made sense. The vascular lesions could have caused the haemorrhage, and the paralysis might well be primary to the disease, and not secondary due to the haemorrhage. It also made for his worst nightmare. Autoimmune, progressive, incurable, leading to blindness, on-going paralysis, cognitive symptoms, GI-involvement, arthritis, and, eventually, death. He dropped the print-out he had just made. For a moment he just sat there, dazed. Then his leg started screaming and his mind followed. Wilson was going to die a slow, painful death. His personality would change, he'd become utterly dependent on others, he'd suffer like a dog. It made being in constant pain for over 40 years seem like a doddle. Fear, anger and grief were climbing over each other in House's limbic system. He didn't know what to think or do, or where to turn. He just wanted peace. He went to the bathroom cupboard and gulped down a couple of Valium, any amount, at random. Just as long as it would make him numb.

He felt slaps on his face and heard someone shouting his name. "HOUSE! HOUSE! WAKE UP! Wake up you idiot! HOUSE!" He opened his eyes, feeling drowsy. "Oh... Hi Cuddy... Hi Mrs. Garrison..." "House, just tell me it was an accident..." Cuddy looked sad and frightened. "It was. Why take the easy way out just when life is the most fun?" "Are you able to get up?" Only now he noticed that he was lying on the floor. He had obviously passed out and fallen off the sofa. The two women helped him up. "Are you hurt?" He felt himself up and down. No, nothing hurt more than usually. "I'm ok, just make me a coffee to help me wake up!" "I'd just put on a pot when your friend came", Mrs Garrison said and went to get some. "What the hell did you take? I thought you were off the Vicodin for good!" House felt absurdly proud for about a microsecond. "I am. This was Wilson's Valium. I just needed something to calm down." "So it definitely WAS an accident..." Cuddy looked him straight in the eyes. "Yes, I swear! Look, I've made it to 82 feeling like shit, now I might as well sit it out! What the hell are you doing here anyway?" "I was passing and saw the Volvo outside the door, just thought I'd look in. When you didn't open I got worried and went down to the Garrisons' to get the janitor's key. So Mrs. Garrison let me in here." House nodded. "Ok, and now you know there's nothing really wrong with me you can go home." "HOUSE! There is obviously something wrong with you! What is it?" "There's a print-out on the floor next to my lounger, see it for yourself." She went to pick it up and started reading it. Her expression got darker and darker as she progressed down the page. "And you think that's what's wrong with Wilson, right?" House nodded, biting back tears. He shrugged off Cuddy's embrace, feeling too vulnerable to be touched. Cuddy sat down in an armchair instead. "I don't think he has that, House. See here? It usually presents like lupus. Whatever Wilson has doesn't." "It doesn't have to. Anyway, now go. I have to think about how to break the news to him." "At least talk to his attending first, ok?" Mrs Garrison came in with the coffee. "Do you take milk or sugar?" "Sugar. It's in the blue bowl on the kitchen worktop." In a way it felt good just to sit there and have coffee with Cuddy and Mrs. Garrison, not to be alone. But House was feeling far too scared and confused to enjoy it.

Cuddy had insisted on staying the night and made it very clear she would see to House not being on his own till the Valium was safely out of his system - so anything up to a week given his age and health profile. He knew it was pointless to argue with her, so he just made her promise not to tell Wilson how he had fucked up. He would do it later himself, when Wilson was well enough to deal with it - if he ever would be well enough that is. The reason why he had overdosed came rushing back into his head. Wilson's days were numbered, and in what a way...

Back at the hospital - Cuddy had insisted on driving him in, too - House made a supreme effort to appear bright and alert, but Wilson knew him too well. "Alright, what did you take?" "Huh?" "You're on something." "Yeah, Lamictal, Marinol and Gabapentin, and I'd better be!" Wilson looked him straight in the eye: "That wouldn't make you drowsy." He just looked sad. "Right! Where did you score the Vicodin?" "Wilson! I'm not on Vicodin!" "Fine, what is it then? Oxy? Demerol? Morphine? Heroin?" House sighed. "None of the above. It's your Valium. I was in a mess last night..." He felt ashamed of himself. "...and so you took about a handful." "Essentially..." "House, for God's sake!" "I'm sorry!" "Fat lot of use that is! I'm not even angry anymore, just disappointed." "Yes, teacher!" "Well what the hell do you expect? Act like a competent adult and you can expect to be treated like one. Until then I fear this'll have to be a student-teacher relationship!" House reeled, that had been a low blow. "Well, if you're interested to know at all what drove me there..." "Not particularly!" He gave Wilson the Neuro-Behcet's print-out anyway. Wilson read.

"So you think that's what's wrong with me", he eventually said, or something approximating that anyway: it was his exercise hour. House only nodded, he was sure that if he spoke his voice would crack. "Ok, I see where you're coming from. Is there a treatment for that?" "Not that I'm aware of. Wilson, you're..." Wilson gasped. "I don't want to go that way..." "Nobody does..." "You know where my DNR is, right?" "Desk, second drawer from the top." Wilson nodded, and they sat in stunned silence until Dr Khan came in. House gave her the print-out. She read it and then turned her attention to House. "Have you ever actually seen Neuro-Behcet's?" "No, must be the only disease I HAVEN'T had the pleasure to diagnose yet." "I thought so. I've seen it, and it doesn't present this way. It presents like lupus almost 100% of the time. So, if YOU didn't suspect it was lupus first, it's probably not gonna be Neuro-Behcet's." "You said almost 100%..." "Fine, we'll do a diffusion-weighted MRI, you must have got your status from somewhere after all. But don't worry about it too much, the chance that it is Neuro-Behcet's is pretty much negligible. Yes, Dr Wilson?" Wilson had tried to catch her attention for a bit. "What if it IS Neuro-Behcet's anyway?" "Sorry?" He made a laboured effort to articulate, but no dice. House found himself translating. "What if it is that anyway?" "High dose steroids. Thank goodness treatment for this has come further since your day, we can save quite a lot of patients with it now, and they go on to live normal lives." Wilson audibly exhaled, and House felt a mountain dropping off his shoulders. "So he might be fine yet?" "If it's what you suspect he most likely will be." "Ok!"

The MRI turned out to be negative. On the one hand, that was a relief. On the other hand, they were back to square one.


	9. To care and to be taken care of

When Cuddy dropped House back to the apartment Rachel and Gina were already there waiting to take over. He rolled his eyes and sighed "Right, so you really mean it..." "You bet your crippled ass I do!" Cuddy shook her head. "I should have known you'd need adult supervision to get through this right from the start. Well, here we go, a competent adult at your beck and call at all times till you're better. Happy now?" "Um, what kind of reply to that do you expect exactly?" He knew there was no point in arguing, especially because she was quite depressingly correct, but there was no way he was going to let her feel good about it. He managed a fairly good approximation of stomping off to the study and banged the door shut behind him.

Sitting there, in his beloved old Charles Eames chair, he could hear the conversation in the living room and what he heard didn't exactly make him feel better. "Why is uncle Greg angry?" Gina was asking, sounding confused. "He's not really", Cuddy tried to explain. "Yes he is, he didn't even say hi to me..." Gina sounded teary now. "He doesn't mean it, and he's certainly not angry with you. He's just in a lot of pain right now, and he's done something really stupid. So I guess he's angry with himself." "But why would anyone be angry with themselves?" "You'll learn about that when you get older. Well, I hope you'll never have to, but you probably will anyway." "Huh?" "Sometimes grown-ups make life more complicated for themselves than it needs to be, and your uncle Greg has that down to an artform." He could hear her taking a deep breath. "You see, there are a lot of things going on in his head that shouldn't be." "No, that's uncle Danny!" "Well, him, too, but that's different things..." House found himself wondering what the term uncle meant to Gina. As she had no actual relations of that kind, it had probably come to be the generic term for "Old guy with serious issues" In her head. He hoped it wouldn't be too hard for her when she found out what other kids' uncles were like. "Do you think he'd feel better if I brought him in a cup of coffee?" Oh, please God, no. It wasn't like he didn't appreciate the thought, and if there was anyone on earth outside Wilson who usually managed to cheer him up it was their adorable little granddaughter, but right now he really wasn't in the state of mind to see anyone. He didn't want to have to hold up and be polite and be nice and pretend to be ok; he just needed some downtime, alone with his loneliness, worry and pain. "Ouuuuugh..." He groaned as tears of pain shot into his eyes. It WAS bad right now, Cuddy was right about that. His entire leg was feeling like one huge cramp. He patted his pockets for relief, but there was none. Oh crap... He felt he'd collapse if he tried to get up. There was nothing for it. "Rachel?" She came in. "There's pain meds in the bathroom cupboard and on my nightstand. Just bring whatever you can find."

House wasn't quire sure why he had said that to Rachel, because he knew perfectly well that she wouldn't find what he wanted. He wanted pain relief, yes, but most of all he wanted that warm, fuzzy, not giving a shit feeling generated by only two things on earth - genuine happiness, which he currently found in even shorter supply than usual, and opioid narcotics. Their apartment had been free of them for about ten years now, and House found himself cursing the moment when he had asked Wilson to clear them all out, away from temptation. He'd just been through the worst detox of his life, still sweating like a pig and as weak as a kitten after nearly three days of sweating, shivering, puking and pain, and he'd never wanted to see anything that could fuck him up like that again. And, realistically, it had been his only option because three days before that he had woken up feeling even more nauseous than usual and found his sclera to be bright yellow. But still... He felt a spasm of longing for his little oblong white friends. Recovering addict? My ass, he never would recover, he had just realised that. Wilson for endorphine release, and when he wasn't there... He bit himself in the arm to relieve some of the tension.

Rachel came back with the pain meds and he took a lot more than was good for him, he knew that, but what the hell... "Just leave me alone", he gasped. "I'll let you know if I need anything." Rachel nodded and went out. He heard her talking to Cuddy in a low voice but couldn't make out what they were saying. Probably something about the amount of tablets he had just taken, fuck them! He just sat there and looked out of the window for a while.

The next morning, he didn't exactly feel better, but at least there were some good news at the hospital. They had excluded all neurodegenerative conditions as a possible cause for the tongue paralysis, so at least Wilson wasn't dying. On the other hand, however, they all, including Wilson, seemed to be adopting a dangerously laissez faire attitude to the problem again, along the lines of "It's just one of those things", and House didn't like that at all. He reprimanded Wilson quite sharply for it actually: "You're not gonna get better before we know what's actually wrong with you, and you know it. So why the hell aren't you even interested in finding out?" Wilson shrugged. "I'm bored in here. Medically, I'm nearly fit to go home, and I want to. As soon as I'm well enough to use the bathroom without help I'll be outta here and never look back." "So you don't care shit that you're still getting your beetroot salad through a tube?" Wilson flinched. HA! He had hit pay dirt. "Of course I do. I just figure it doesn't matter if I learn to swallow again here or at home." House felt oddly disappointed. "Am I talking to the guy who spent most of his career helping me solve medical mysteries?" Wilson shrugged, slightly lopsided but definitely better than the day before. "It's different when you're on this side of the fence. You should know, you've been a patient here more often than me." "Yeah, and all because one fine day they failed to diagnose me in time." House was beginning to feel really worried now. "Wilson, let me find out what's wrong with you. If you don't you might regret it for the rest of your life!" Wilson conceded. "I'll think about it. Can we talk about nicer things now?" "Guess so... Anything nice you can think of?" "Ummmm... Carol thinks my speech is getting clearer?" "Carol?" "The speech therapist. Nice girl, Canadian." "Oh, is she?" House found there was a sarcastic edge to his voice. "And tell me, did you ask her to call you Jimmy?" "Erm... Nnnnnoooooooo..." Suddenly Wilson seemed to have a revelation. His jaw dropped, then he started to laugh. "House!" It took him a while to calm down. "You're not... Jealous by any chance, are you?" "No I'm NOT!" House was indignant. "Yes you are, hawhaw!" Wilson obviously thought it was hilarious. "House, listen to me! Even if I was interested, which I'm not, I'm still 72 years old and I drool. I'm pretty sure she could do better." The idea of anyone being a better catch than Wilson was alien to House, and of course he was jealous.

And look who it was... "Talk about the devil..." House mumbled when he saw her coming in. Wilson gave him an absolutely shit-faced grin. "Hi Carol, we just were just talking about you." "Oh, about my three heads and five noses?" House studied her intensely. She was nice-looking but not spectacular, short-ish, blonde. Not really Wilson's type, which was a relief of sorts. "Hi Dr House, nice to see you again." "Hi..." He didn't feel overly enthusiastic about her presence; indeed the only thing that kept him on the polite side of things was that she was helping Wilson get better. "Dr Wilson, I thought we might work on your swallow today." He turned towards her. "Ok... OW!" "Huh?" "I don't know, it's just something in my neck, it's been slightly off-kilter ever since the haemorrhage." House could feel his eyes widen. It was epiphany time. "Wilson! That's it! Your atlas is pressing on the nerve! You must have crooked your cervical spine in the fall! Get the neurologist, we need a good old-fashioned x-ray of your neck!"

Yes, that was it, the x-ray confirmed House's diagnosis. The orthopaedics people had hung up Wilson by the ankles and put his vertebrae into the right places again, and now it was a matter of waiting. After nearly a week of being rubbed and squeezed and generally maltreated, Wilson's subglossus was bruised, so it would take some time to heal before they could expect any real improvement in the tongue paralysis. And did it ever take some time... Day after day went by, of rigorous therapy and exercise, of tiny little spoons of yoghurt, of slow improvement in his arm, his ability to sit up, even the leg that had taken so long to respond, everything really but his tongue. Wilson seemed to take it all in his stride, but House was feeling more helpless everyday. Now he had found out what was wrong with him, what exactly was his place in Wilson's life right now? He couldn't do much to help him get better, he wasn't well enough himself to look after him once he got home, he was worried what that would mean for their future together - he found he was gulping down a Lunesta almost every night now, just to get any sort of sleep at all. And still Cuddy wouldn't leave him alone; she had organised a veritable care squad for him. Alright, so it was nice to have someone take care of the Household while he was taking care of... Well, what was he taking care of actually? Nothing much at all for all he could see. He went in to see Wilson whenever he managed to heave himself out of bed, which was later day by day, he sometimes brought him in some stuff and sometimes not, he expressed joy and hope at whichever progress he had made, he went home with his head still buzzing with the same worries, he doped himself up, he went to bed... Something was badly wrong here, he was back to just going through the motions.

The day after new year he finally broke down. He had been feeling even worse the past two days, by rights new year's eve should have been a fun time with a couple of beers and some age-inappropriate behaviour and new year's day should have been a day of headaches, Bloody Marys and overspiced food, but instead... He'd been listening to the progress report as he had everyday, nodding at what he considered the appropriate times, and expressing enthusiasm at others, when Wilson suddenly interrupted himself for something that obviously seemed more important to him. "And how are you?" "I'm fine..." Wilson looked him up and down. "Sure?" "Yes!" "No you're not!" "Yes I am, and now shut the fuck up!" "That is of course exactly the way a fine person would react to being asked how they are!" "Hey look, what do you care? You're sick, I'm supposed to take care of you, I'm trying my best. Sorry it still sucks!" "Well if that's the way you feel..." "Yes it is!" "Oh great! And how the hell am I supposed to get better when I can't stop worrying about you? You're as pale as a ghost, you can hardly keep upright, you're about half an inch away from going back on the Vicodin, and you're in worse pain than you've been in about 20 years! Ideal conditions indeed to recover from a cerebral event!" "Well no one's forcing you to make me the centre of your life!" "Maybe I want you to be?" House shrugged. "You're old enough to decide what's good for you, so if you think I'm not..." "But you are..." "No I'm obviously not!" He wished he could have left the room, but he was in too much pain to even get up. Instead he just sat there, biting back tears.

He felt Wilson's hand on his back through a haze. "Yes you are. Good for me. You're letting me take care of you, and you have no idea what that means." "But you're sick, I'm supposed to take care of you!" Wilson rolled his eyes: "And it throws our entire relationship off kilter. Listen House, please let me look after you. I need that. If I can't, I'll end up even sicker. Tell me how you feel , like you always did, don't make me worry about you in silence. We'll get through this, and I'll get better, but only if you don't try to be something you're not." "Which is?" "A carer. There are carers and there are carees. You're a caree, always have been. I realised that on the day we met. Let me be your carer, like it should be, and everything will end up fine. That's just the way we need things to be..." House sighed. "Ok..." "So, how are you?" "Like shit. But better now we've argued." Wilson smiled: "Of course you are." They hugged, both feeling very sentimental for a moment. "My little one... Why do you keep acting silly like that?" "Because if I didn't you'd have no excuse for taking care of me?" "Good point..." "Saranghae..." "What was that?" "Korean..." "It's interesting how you only ever say it in English when you think I'm dying..." They laughed. For a fleeting moment, House actually felt happy.


	10. Two merry Cripples

About three weeks later, Wilson was discharged and, purely medically speaking, fit to go home - in a wheelchair, the low-slung kind occupational therapists didn't usually prescribe for temporary impairments. From an actual living his life perspective, though... Hm... He was able to sit up straight and stand up for limited periods of time, just about enough to attend to the basics of life without help, and he had graduated to pureed food. His right hand was nearly back to normal, his speech had become more articulate, but still not articulate enough to actually get out there without the help of surfer dude, who'd they'd baptised Dennis in the mean time. "We'll have to call off my volunteer night", he said before they'd even got to the sofa. "What's the point if I can't actually talk to people?" House tried to be constructive. "You could take Dennis..." "He'd creep them out. As would the drooling thing." "It's still you behind it..." Wilson gave him a sad smile. "Thanks! But who knows that except for you? These people want their superhero oncologist who'll make them all better, and superheroes don't drool." "You're beginning to sound like me." "Crippledom - the side-effects... We could co-author a paper." House laughed. "That's my wonderboy. Sit down..." "I AM sitting down. And don't I wish I wasn't!" "WAH, he's turning into me! Sit down ON THE SOFA, I'll make us a coffee. Let's just play normal for a bit..." "Ok..." Wilson heaved himself onto the sofa. "Is there still chicken-soup in the freezer?" "I think so. But can you have that?" Wilson gawked theatrically. "This is getting creepy, now you're turning into me! I guess you could thicken it..." "Ok..." House microwaved some chicken-soup and diligently thickened it according to the instructions on the jar of weird powder carol had pressed onto them, feeling glad to be able to help at least in some way. And another spoonful into the coffee. URGH! The very idea of thickened coffee creeped him out, but if it was medically necessary... His heart went out to Wilson.

when they had finished their meal, House tried to remember what things had been like all those years ago, when it had hit him he would never finish that round of golf, would never be out of pain again, would probably never kiss Stacy again. It had been a shitty time, he remembered that. And Wilson had been by his side day and night, picking up the pieces for him and putting them back together. It was payback time, he knew that, and he wrecked his mind how to go about it. "What's up?" Wilson had obviously noticed his more than usually furrowed brow. "Nothing..." "House..." "Fine, just trying to remember how you went about putting me back together back when it happened to me." "I didn't really go about it, it just happened. You could start with a hug, though..." He was only too happy to pull Wilson closer and they sat in a silent embrace for a while.

Eventually Wilson restarted the conversation. "We'll have to decide on a home help, this place is not gonna clean itself." "We'll be fine..." "No, we won't be, and you know it." "Look, I'm perfectly able to fill a dish-washer and vacuum a floor." "Which is of course why Rachel and Mrs Garrison shared these tasks you're so able to perform out between them in my absence. Hi Henry!" Their cat was obviously overjoyed to see his senior can-opener again and lay down on his lap purring like a diesel. "Fine, we'll get the cleaner to come three times a week instead of once." "House, it's more than that. Have you ever tried to go grocery shopping in a wheelchair?" "I'm sure there's a way of doing it!" "There might be, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to go down that route of exploration. We. Need. A. Home help!" In fact, they had already interviewed seven candidates for the job, but House had found fault with every single one of them. Ok, they were pretty much agreed about the ones on a mission. One had actually said it was God's will that she should help them carry their burden, to which they had replied almost in unison that it was their will she shouldn't. But the other ones... Wilson seemed to be happy to let just about anyone fuss around with their dirty laundry. "What about that kid, Joe?" "The social work student?" "Uhu..." "He'll probably make us his term project." "So what if he does? As long as he cleans the litter box everyday I'm happy to be undergrad research." "Do I get a say?" "Only because this is a democracy..." "Just as long as I know what I'm at. Fine, hire him. But don't expect me to be polite!"

Wilson turned out to be right about Joe, he was a cool kid, bright and funny, and a deft hand with all things related to cleaning, but he made House feel paranoid anyway. His enthusiasm about the old Flying V made House wonder why he was being so nice, on laundry day he thought he saw him giggling about his less than fashionable boxer shorts and on the whole he just couldn't relax with a stranger around the place for two hours every day. He was a creature of habit after all, and feeling he could be himself in the presence of anyone but Wilson always took him a very long time indeed. And then... Well, it was great to have Wilson home again, to help him a bit more than he was used to around the kitchen, to snuggle up to him at night, but, HELL, he hardly ever got to see him anymore. Wilson's entire schedule seemed to consist of rehab appointments of some sort or other right now, when he wasn't having speech-therapy he was with the physical therapists, and when he wasn't there he was seeing to his self-imposed getting back on his feet exercise regimen with a personal trainer. Finally he confronted him one night during the commercial break: "What the hell are you running away from?" "Erm... Nothing? Can't run, as you would usually point out." "You still are, and I'm fucking sure it's from me. I spend more time with Joe than with you at the moment. Look, if you want carol just be honest and get it over with, I can live with it!" "WHAT? You honestly think I'm seeing Carol when I say I'm at the gym?" "No normal person spends that amount of time at the gym, if it's for medical reasons or not!" "So... I'm a normal person now..." "You are within the parameters of this debate. What the hell is going on?" Wilson looked surprised and slightly hurt. "Nothing, I promise, I'm just trying to get better. Strange concept to you I guess." "Leave me out of this!" "How, given that you instigated it? Look, you're just being paranoid and you know it." "Even if I was, can you blame me? We see less of each other now than we did before you retired." "But it's for a good reason, for God's sake! I just want to get back on my feet so we can run our own lives again. Do you think I like having some kid check out my dirty underpants?" House felt a surge of love, Wilson had said exactly what he felt himself. "Guess not..." He pulled him into a hug.

Over the next few weeks, the hemiplegia kept improving steadily and Wilson was now managing quite well on crutches around the apartment. But still his tongue would not move; it might as well have been smoked and served with potato salad. They were watching the Food Network one night when he irritably snatched the remote and changed channels. "Hey, I was watching that!" House complained. "Watch it somewhere else then, I'm sick of it!" "What? This is your favourite cookery show!" "It was up to 30 seconds ago!" "What the..." "Do you know what it actually feels like not to be able to eat any of that stuff?" "Well, I know what it feels like to watch Augusta unable to walk a par 3 hole, if that helps." "No, it doesn't!" "Whatevah..." "Of course whatevah, what else would it be with you! Can you ever, just once in your life, look beyond your own crippled ass?" Wow... For a moment they just sat there in silence, seemingly both shocked by that sudden eruption. Finally, Wilson began to speak, sounding lower than House had ever known him. "I'm sorry, maybe it does help. It's bound to I guess. But..." He bit his lip. "It's just... This sucks really hard." "I know it does, I've been there." "I never knew how hard I've been on you all these years. I'm sorry..." "It's ok, you couldn't know." "House, I'm disgusting! I have to use my fingers to shove food around my mouth and I need a fucking bib, for God's sake!" Hm yes, that was essentially what they had bought the scarf he was wearing for. "And I'd happily choke to death on a bone just for some texture. The liquidiser is probably gonna break down from wear and tear before lunch tomorrow." House ruffled his hair that was growing back as thick and glossy as ever. "I wish I could tell you something helpful right now, but I can't. All I can say is that you won't notice people staring as much over time. And that... I love you." He had meant to say something rather more intelligent than that, but then it had just slipped out. And it was true, too. Wilson smiled. "You said it in English..." He felt himself pulled into a kiss. Carefully, experimentally he poked his tongue in, exploring that new, passive Wilson. He gently felt his way round his mouth, tickling and stroking. And then... Was that a flicker? He pulled back. "Wilson, it moved!" "What?" "Your tongue, there was a flicker there!" "No there wasn't!" "Yes there was." They went straight back to kissing, and this time Wilson noticed it, too. YES! It was still going to be a while, but he would probably be fine. Later that night, it was payback time. House woke up feeling Wilson's hand on his bad thigh, lightly, gently touching the scar, playing with it, making it prickle and tingle just this side of pain. Then he worked his way upwards and shot him straight into orbit.


	11. As happy as it gets

House watched his sweetums's progress carefully and in late February decided that he was fit to go adventuring again. The cane he was using to walk now was probably a fixture for life, but who cared, he'd get used to it, and hopefully less clumsy, too. His speech was still slurred, but no more so than the average bar fly's, and he was happily able to eat just about anything again. The only thing that still had to be taken care of was the look in his eyes. They seemed to have lost their sparkle, observing the world with a shell-shocked look.

Finally, a week before his birthday, House decided it was time for action; he wanted sarcastic, mischievous Wilson back, the substitute he was getting right now was boring. After a bit of a think and a large bourbon while Wilson wasn't looking it became clear to him what was needed here - some age-inappropriate behaviour, a hand or two of poker and some good old all-American sleaze: Atlantic City, here we come! He booked them a room in their favourite hotel, arranged for a Happy Birthday Mr President stripogram to greet them on arrival and packed their tuxes and some nice gear for hitting the strip clubs. Finally, he went to find the coolest cane in Princeton for an actual birthday gift, because he knew well that that grey medical supplies thing Wilson was still using was ugly enough to depress anyone.

When Wilson's birthday arrived, he donned his favourite road-tripping t-shirt, a rather fetching blue number he had picked up in Japan many many years ago and that made no sense at all, and brought in the coffee with something approaching a spring in his step. "Get ready, wonder boy, we're going on the road!" "Are we?" Wilson still looked rather bleary-eyed and not at all convinced. "Yep, there'll be birthday burgers and birthday fries and birthday sleaze for the birthday boy and he'll love it!" "No, I won't!" "Yes, you will, so get up and start on your presents!" In fairness, he did like the cane, which was a success all in itself. And well... He allowed himself to be dragged into the car, too. "So where are we going anyway?" "The magical mystery tour is going to take you away... Sorry, can't tell you!" "Interesting..." Wilson was sparking up, great. They had tuned the radio to some cheesy oldies station, which definitely helped. "Hmmm... Funny how the love interest in these songs is always called Jimmy, there must be something primevally sexy about the name." "You wish, dorkface!" "Aw, don't make me feel ugly!" "Well, at least you obviously appeal to 14 year old girls, better than nothing I guess..." "Hey, more of that talk and I'll run off to Arkansas and marry one!" "That's ok, I'll just get a six pack for the two hours till the divorce is through." They caught each other's eye and started laughing. Wilson was looking like a Labrador puppy about to steal a packet of sausages, with a big grin and sparkling eyes. Seeing him like that was the best feeling House had ever known. All was good.


End file.
